From Chaos to Clarity: Why One-Off Activities Are Failing Your Therapy Sessions

You spend all evening scouring the internet for the perfect activity for little Timmy.

You print.

You cut.

You laminate.

You velcro.

He’s gonna love it.

And then…

…it lasts all of two seconds and then he’s bored.

I’m speech-language pathologist Carrie Clark and in today’s episode of The Speech and Language Kids Podcast, we’ll be answering the question of “are one-off activities really working, or are they just filling time?” Plus, I’ll show you how you the power of having a start-to-finish plan that actually moves children toward success.

Listen to the Podcast Here

You can listen to the full podcast episode below:

Why do we love one-off activities so much?

Well…

• They’re readily available
• They’re easy
• They’re super cute and fun-looking
• And they’re what we see all around us on social media.  Cause they’re catchy.

But the downsides of one-off activities are numerous:

• Lack of progression – no clear path from skill introduction to mastery.
• SO MUCH time & effort – constant searching for new materials.
• Difficult to track progress – activities don’t build on each other.
• Can be overwhelming for kids – inconsistent approaches confuse learners.

So what’s the opposite of throwing together a bunch of one-off activities?

A structured plan that takes you from introducing a skill to mastery in a systematic way.

Think back to grad school, remember the Van Riper approach?

First we work on sounds in isolation, then syllables, then words, etc. Remember?

Imagine having a systematic plan like that for EVERY skill you teach!

And then imagine having a systematic plan for which skills to teach in the first place!

Start-to-finish plans are:

• Intentional – every step builds toward mastery.
• Predictable – clients know what to expect, which lowers stress.
• Efficient – no scrambling to find the “next” activity.

Think of this as two types of plans:

1. Therapy Pathways: A sequence of skills that you’ll teach to treat or support a specific challenge
2. Therapy Plans: Specific therapy lessons for specific skills that they need to master.

A good therapy plan will include both of these. Think of them as the forest, and the trees. The pathway is made up of a whole bunch of therapy plan modules.

For example, a therapy pathway for a child who stutters may include coordinating their breathing, dealing with negative emotions, and teaching them stuttering modification strategies.

That’s the Pathway.

And then there will be an individual therapy plan for each of those skills that breaks them down into manageable steps.

Take a look at where the individual is now.

How are they communicating?

Where are they struggling?

What are the individual skills that they would need to learn to overcome that particular challenge?

Then, we map out the skills that they will need to get there.

Once you know what skills they need to acquire, you can work on planning out how you’ll teach each individual skill.

These will become your individual therapy plans.

Again, think about where they are now with that skill and where you want them to be.

Then, create a step-by-step plan that will walk them through learning the skill.

You can…

• Provide supports and remove them as you go along
• Or, make the skill easier and then build it up as you go along

Oh!

I’m so glad you asked!

Why am I so passionate about this?

Because this is what I’m spending all of my time on right now.

I’m building out the therapy plans for you so you don’t have to spend your free time coming up with structured plans.

And I’ll be working on the Pathways next!

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